Tansu

[Todd Crawford]

Same here - that is how all of my furniture building started.... An idea from her and a "I'm not paying that much for that" from me. I figure she is going to get what she wants and find a way to pay for it anyway, I might as well get a new tool or something out of the deal!

[Chris Padilla]

So after the J/P was "Incra'ed", I did the same to the BS!!

That's a Lenox Woodmaster CT loaded up on the BS right now....

[Jim Becker]

Chris, are you planning on using that plank at the full ten foot length? If not, why not break it down after a quick skim so you can see the figure to make the flattening and thicknessing easier on you and your machine?

[Chris Padilla]

So next on the list was to address some concerns I had with this plank o' walnut.

There was a small knot/bark inclusion near one end that was buggin' me so I thought I'd try and fix it.

Out of a different piece of walnut on the same board, I was able to use a circle cutting jig on my router and hog out a clean 1" cylinder.

Since the defect was angled and didn't go through the whole board, I set it up on my drill press on a best guess angle and cut out the defect with a 1" forstner bit.

Always looking for an excuse to go Neander, I cut the excess cylinder off with a handsaw and handplaned it (somewhat) smooth.

You can now see where I finally cut that 10 footer roughly in half at that cracked knot. I just followed the crack and turned "right" and headed for the other side. I used a jigsaw. I wish I would have done this when the board was all rough but lesson learned....

[Chris Padilla]

Chris, are you planning on using that plank at the full ten foot length? If not, why not break it down after a quick skim so you can see the figure to make the flattening and thicknessing easier on you and your machine?

See post #25...I hear ya...now....

[Chris Padilla]

Well now that the stock is all prepped--FINALLY!!--I can actually do something that feels more like I'm gettin' sumthin' dun on this here tansu!!

So each piece of this tansu will be made up of:

2 pieces of 5/8" MDF
2 walnut veneers (top/bottom) ~1/16"
Solid walnut edging applied BEFORE the top/bottom veneer

A sheet of 2" rigid foam, my driveway coated with oak leaves, some F tools, and I have some MDF broken down into rough sizes ready to be laminated together in my vacuum press.

I'm just tickled pink to be able to finally use my vacuum press. This thing just big time SUCKS!!

[Bruce Page]

Wow Chris! You've been busy!
That's a beautiful chunk of walnut.

[Chris Padilla]

Bruce,

I'm trying to keep busy but it can be tough to find time in the shop some times! Work is closing down so I have 11 days off ahead of me from X-mas until Jan 5! I think I'll get quite a bit done on this thing during that time!

[Chris Padilla]

So I got to some resawing...finally!! I had pretty good results.

I had this chunk of fir from an old beam someone gave and I thought it might make a good stiff fence....

I had a Lenox Diemaster2 (1/2", 6 tpi, bimetal, hook style) on my BS for the resawing.

[Bruce Page]

Bruce,

I'm trying to keep busy but it can be tough to find time in the shop some times! Work is closing down so I have 11 days off ahead of me from X-mas until Jan 5! I think I'll get quite a bit done on this thing during that time!

Sweet!
I'm going to be off from the 19th thru the 5th. I'm really looking forward to it.

[Chris Padilla]

Well I am finally ready to start wraping some trim around some of the panels for the Tansu.

The trim is about 9/16" thick. I probably went overboard with the biscuits but I have plenty of them and figured it couldn't hurt. I ended up going with a #10 for the trim.

The FF biscuit didn't work out so well for the miters so I ended up not using them. I guess I couldn't hold the stock well enough to get matching cuts because they were off just enough to mess me up when I did some dry runs.

I used some offcuts to help me set up my biscuit cutter and that wood spacer worked nicely for adjusting between the walnut trim and the MDF. I basically set up the cutter for dead center on the walnut and then used the spacer to slightly raise the fence on the 557 to cut slots in the MDF. This allowed the walnut trim to be centered on the MDF and thus stand proud on either side.

Anyway, the glue-up went well although it looks nasty. All of that will be flush trimmed plus veneer will be placed on the top and bottom to cover everything else up.

[Chris Padilla]

Next on the list was to prepare the veneers. Boy was that long and mind-numbingly boring as all get out! However, they all turned out very, very well so I can't complain too much. My used Delta drum sander worked out nicely after I fiddled with it for an entire Saturday.

Lottsa walnut "flour" was in my bin so I scooped up a couple containers of it to use to fix mistakes I am sure I will make moving forward!

I made up a jig to run the veneers across my jointer. Some bolts with wing nuts will go where the two clamps are. The veneer pair will go between the 3/4" stock and then I'll joint the whole spiel at once.

My first jointed pieces of veneer came out rather nicely! Now it is time to tape the seams and toss 'er in the vacuum press!

[Chris Padilla]

So the B on these veneers means bottom so you want to first tape the two pieces together temporarily with blue painter's tape.

Then you flip it over and use veneer tape for the top or show side...then flip back and remove the blue tape. You don't want to leave that blue tape on when you put veneer glue on!!

I used a waterless veneer tape that Joe over at joewoodworker/veneersupplies raves about. It seemed to work great. Since this is the only veneer tape I've ever used, I don't know what it is like to use the kind you have to wet. This one is quite convenient...pull some off the roll, tear it off...stick 'er on. Couldn't be simpler.

In some cases, I've used a clamp to gently snug up the veneers to really close up the seam and then I tape it. This stuff holds very well yet is easily removed even after pressing.

I used some recently acquired breather mesh for the 'top caul' of the vacuum press and you can see a fair amount of glue squeezing through. I later learned to tape all joints such that any squeeze-through is minimized. I think it is okay to have squeeze-through at the joint...makes me feel like the veneers got somewhat edge-glued. The glue is dark to match the walnut so it shouldn't cause any finishing issues...I hope!

So my first pressing went pretty well I think. I did screw up the orientation of the veneer by flipping it end-for-end. I had forgotten that the short side of the panel with the walnut trim is the "back" of the tansu and so I wanted the knot right there but I put it on the other side like a nimrod.

So side 1 was done and trimmed with a flush trim bit on a router...next was side 2! Uh...oh.....

[Chris Padilla]

Well side 2 didn't go so well. I left the veneer hanging over the edge too much and the veneer press busted it all around more or less ruining the panel. Where is the cry emoticon...we need one!

I didn't even take any pics. I still went ahead and flush trimmed it up and I decided to cut it into 3 pieces to use for the supports.

The other issue I found was that the original spacing for the baskets was going to be too tight in both dimensions. This meant that the above panel (that I just messed up) was going to be both not long enough and not wide enough. Oh well, a trial run for me I guess but I will still be able to use the panel.

I decided to go ahead and make a second panel only this panel would be the bottom panel and thus have much wider edging on it. This one, so far, has come out perfect. I used my 12" CMS blade in my TS to trim the edges clean since it was too tall for a regular blade. See this thread for a discussion about that. That walnut trim is about 2 7/8" wide.

[Alan DuBoff]

See post #25...I hear ya...now....

I was wondering the same thing, but dayuuuuummm that is one beautiful piece of walnut!

Great project, something the Kanna User would be proud of you for!

One Q, are those Incra rails around your band saw?